ten thousand bytes of cinematic critique

Black Panther (2018)

This is the best Marvel Studios movie since Captain America: Winter Soldier. I know everyone loves Guardians of the Galaxy, and I liked it fine, but it takes more than a talking tree and some bad 70s music to get me hard.

Black Panther brings something fresh to superheroes. Yeah, of course it has spandex and non-sense tech and a plot that loses steam in the second hour – that’s all standard Marvel fare. What it brought was something more than white guys and generic background music.

The cast was overwhelmingly black, with serious attempts to incorporate authentic African culture into a fictional African city-state. The soundtrack is OUTSTANDING, the most unique soundtrack of any comic book movie in any universe. The female characters are arguably more interesting than the male stars.

I have heard some people say Killmonger is more interesting than T’Challa, but frankly, they’re both kind of bland. If you sit and think about Killmonger’s long term plan, it’s pretty nonsensical, even before he arrives in Wakanda.

This movie was so refreshing it’s almost a shame it has to be a Marvel movie. Still, three weeks in and it’s already earned a billion dollars, which just goes to show audiences are hungry for new things, and we don’t need a world of Death Wish remakes.